Biology, breeding, husbandry and diseases of the captive Egyptian fat-tailed jird (Pachyuromys duprasi natronensis).

The fat-tailed jird, a small North African rodent with a distinctive club-shaped tail, is a convenient research subject and an emerging model for Old World leishmaniasis. The authors present the natural history and biology of the Egyptian fat-tailed jird and provide guidelines for the breeding and husbandry of this species on the basis of their experience raising a colony from wild stock in Cairo, Egypt. They also discuss the diseases they encountered in wild and captive-bred jirds.